Kabale is one of the poorest districts in Uganda and public health and other essential services in the area are particularly weak. Poverty amongst women and young people is particularly prevalent because of the spread of many preventable diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS.
Diseases such as these have contributed to making 8% of the population young orphans. Many people affected by these killer diseases struggle to afford the cost of long term health care for their family members and, after a death, often don’t have enough of an income to live on. Orphaned children and adolescents are left to provide for themselves with little means of obtaining an income or an education.
Nearly half the population of this region are under the age of 15, many of whom, because of disease and poverty cannot afford to go to school. Many of these under-privileged young people don’t receive any health care, and because of a lack of education have no route out of poverty. They have no voice in the community and no opportunity to participate in community decisions, and are consistently overlooked by those making the decisions
Aims
To give young people in Kabale a greater understanding of their basic human rights and teach them how to participate in local decision making processes that affect their lives by:
- Enabling young people to influence district policies and practices to make them more youth friendly
- Enabling young people to demand for and access youth-friendly services including health care
- Improving young people’s understanding of poverty reduction and their role in the community
- Improving young people’s participation in decision making processes that affect their lives
- Improving young people’s understanding of health issues and how to avoid disease
- Improving information distribution and sharing among young people in and around Kabale in order to strengthen their ‘voice’ in the district
Achievements
- 118 parish youth associations have been supported and representatives chosen to speak for young people in their communities
- Youth representatives are now attending local policy-making meetings to represent their views
- Young people are now more comfortable attending health centres and accessing health care because every health centre in the district now has a member of staff trained in providing health services to young people
- Over 470 young people have been trained as ‘peer educators’ to educate and counsel their peers on adolescent sexual and reproductive health
- Resource centres have been established to provide information to young people on health issues and their rights
- AMREF has run various radio shows to spread more information about HIV/AIDS and poverty reduction in the district
- In order to help young people access an income and work their way out of poverty, groups have been trained in business development and on how to produce business plans and attract funding from the district authorities, NGOs and community organisations. They also attend skills workshops run by AMREF which offer free skills training
- In this male dominated society young women have been educated about their rights and encouraged to voice their opinions within the community.
